Book Club: The Next Chapter really should have had some better editors before going to print

BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER

(12A) 107mins

★★☆☆☆

THERE is no doubt that there is a serious lack of decent parts for older women in Hollywood.

So it was with high hopes that I saw the line up for this second part to 2018’s Book Club.

Alamy

The crew of novel lovers is played by Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen[/caption]

The crew of novel lovers, played by Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, are all aged 70 or over and share the lead.

Sadly, after nearly two hours of watching the four veteran actors on screen, I fear there’s still a lack of decent roles for older women in Hollywood.

This lazy attempt at a gal-pal comedy, sees the four best friend’s take their book club abroad for an Italian adventure.

But first the film starts in lockdown, when the ladies are doing their book club over Zoom.

With no elastic waistband or greasy hair in sight, the immaculate foursome look far from any lockdown I remember.

And sets a theme for all the brightly lit scenes, where the faces of the cast are bleached by powerful ring lights.

Directed by Bill Holderman, the crew jet off to Rome — which often looks more like the inside of a shopping mall — on a whim after reading The Alchemist and to celebrate Vivian’s (Fonda) sudden engagement to Arthur (Don Johnson).

The seemingly highly intelligent and cultured women fall into the classic trope of idiot-Americans- abroad, by handing their cases to two “porters” who look like the Super Mario Bros.

Other idiocies include getting arrested for sexually harassing a policeman they mistake for a stripper, leering at naked statues and brazenly talking on speakerphone in art galleries.

I give nothing away when revealing these “jokes”.

You not only see them coming a mile off, you feel like you’ve watched them run a marathon before hobbling over the finish line.

There’s even a pretty excruciating let’s-all-try-on- wedding-dresses montage.

Yes, the finale is heart-warming enough and while there are zero surprises and only a few titters of laughter, you still root for the women who love a drink, a dance and each other.

With classic actors such as these at the helm, The Book Club really should have had some better editors before going to print.

STILL

(15) 95mins

★★★★☆

AS Marty McFly in Back To The Future, Michael J Fox hated anyone calling him chicken.

And after watching fly-on-the-wall-style documentary Still, no one will think the actor lacks guts.

The Apple+ film shows a man refusing to let Parkinson’s disease ruin his life.

Diagnosed with the incurable disease at the age of 29, Michael never once wallows in self-pity.

Now 61, the retired actor is seen laughing with his wife and children, joking about his condition.

But he’s also honest enough to admit he has made mistakes along the way.

After his 1991 diagnosis he drank heavily.

Then he overdid the tablets that help reduce the shakes, because he didn’t want colleagues and fans to know about his health problems.

Director Davis Guggenheim, whose previous works include An Inconvenient Truth, edits everything together with wit and zip.

It’s hard not to smile at the way he uses archive footage of Michael to deliver poignant lines.

All in all, Still is a classy mixture of nostalgia, celebrity and hope that is sure to move you.

• Grant Rollings

DEAD SHOT

(15) 92mins

★★★☆☆

DIRECTED and co-written by The Uninvited’s Guard brothers, this bleak retribution tale is set in the Seventies in the middle of the bitter Northern Ireland conflict.

Retired IRA paramilitary man Michael O’Hara (Colin Morgan) escapes an ambush by British SAS officer Tempest (Aml Ameen) but his pregnant wife is shot and killed at the scene.

© Sky/ Upper Street/ Stylopic/ A Piecrust and Highland Midgie Production

Retired IRA paramilitary man Michael O’Hara, played by Colin Morgan, escapes an ambush by a British SAS officer but his pregnant wife is shot at the scene[/caption]

He flees, presumed dead, to run an Active Service Unit of the Republican Army in London, the same city where Tempest has been posted following a promotion.

The unit’s aim is to cause chaos and fear, while O’Hara’s personal intention is to hunt down Tempest and avenge his beloved’s life.

The two men play cat and mouse in nervous, edgy Seventies Britain, where the threat of bombings and attacks is ever present.

Tempest must also contend with casual prejudice as a “black man in a white man’s world”, to the frustration of his partner Ruth (a notable Sophia Brown).

A well-made, serious watch with super attention to detail. But brace yourself for heavy going.

• On Sky Cinema